The Time Leo Elster Forgot
by Laatija
Summary: Matilda Hawkins is happily adulting on her own at a university when suddenly Leo Elster shows up at her flat, distressed and confused... ...Because sometimes computers actually *can* lose data...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I do not own Humans

This worm of a story happens some time after the events in series 1. It'll probably conflict with series 2 but, well, I have to get it out anyway. Don't know when it'll be finished. Heck, I don't' even know where it's going, exactly. Mostly I just wanted an excuse for some Leo H/C and some Mattie love. So here it is:

* * *

 **The Time that Leo Elster Forgot**

* * *

Leo looked around for a third time.

He was in a narrow brightly lit hallway. Lots of doors on either side of the hall. The walls were sort of…cream colored. Words like 'housing' and 'flats' rose to the surface of his mind.

Music was playing from behind one of the doors. Muted.

It smelled like too many people.

There was a door directly in front of him. Door number 3-0-3.

He pushed his hands into his pants pockets and hunched his shoulders up as he looked at the door.

It opened.

Mattie Hawkins opened it. "Hey."

"…hey," he said back to her.

She retreated into the room beyond the door. "Want tea? I've just put the water on to boil," she said over her shoulder.

He stepped into the room because it was the thing to do. It was a tiny little room. The study desk was as big as the bed that was crammed into the corner. To his left was an even smaller bathroom. It made him feel…large.

"So I was wondering if I could put a piece of you or Mia's code online," she started to say as she got two mugs ready with tea bags. "I've got an idea but I need some other opinions from other head-crackers. It'll be totally safe, I swear. Your name or location won't be tied to it at all. But if this works, it'll be the main piece to my final project and it'll blow Dr. Tripple away. Honestly, she'll think I'm a genius…"

He blinked at her.

"Leo?" Mattie turned to look at him, a quizzical expression on her face.

He only stared.

She stared back.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"…you…You can't, um…." He trailed off, working really hard to connect what she said to reality and finding himself stalling out.

"I know, I know," she said quickly. "But I swear, Leo, this will be…it. It'll solve a lot of problems and maybe even find a way to access your memo—"

Leo squinted at her, mouth hanging open a little.

She made a face. "It's not that dangerous!"

Leo jerked backwards a step, spinning in a tight half circle. His lips flopped up into a disbelieving smile.

"I don't, um," he started, "I don't…understand." His voice was strained. Too high.

He looked around the room again. The smile drooped into nothing. It was getting hard to breathe.

"Leo—"

His eyes snapped to her, wide and paranoid.

She shrunk back.

"Look, forget it," Mattie said, holding up her hands. "I'll figure out something else."

"…figure out…what?" he asked, slowly.

She frowned. "The project. The one you've _not_ been helping me with like you promised?"

He opened his mouth to say something and the kettle snapped off.

Mattie poured the boiling water into a mug and offered it to him.

"I'm sorry," she said with an obligatory half smile. "I shouldn't have asked."

Leo took the mug and looked down at the dark amber swirls hemorrhaging from the teabag. He felt very cold.

"Oh my god! Leo!" Mattie suddenly yelped.

He started, scalding heat sloshing over the edge of the cup. "What?"

"You're bleeding!"

His hand flitted down to his side automatically, feeling for the usual rip in his abdomen. But his shirt was dry. Mattie sided closer and touched his shoulder. Leo flinched away from her, horror spilling out across his face.

"Easy," she said lightly. "You've got blood coming down your neck. Did you hit your head or something?"

Leo shuffled to the mirror and looked, frowning. Sure enough, there was blood down the back of his neck. A thick sticky ribbon of it, nearly dry and going well past the collar of his jacket. He started to pull off his hat and came to a jarring stop as the wool lifted off his hair. Pain spiked across his scalp as bloodied hair separated from the fibers of his hat. Grimacing, Leo pulled the hat away completely. It fell to the floor with a wet squash.

"Oh shit," Mattie breathed. Her eyes were as big as saucers.

It was the correct sentiment. Oh shit.

It was difficult to distinguish blood from grease but it wasn't hard to see the clean crescent shaped wound at the base of his skull – almost like a horseshoe. Oozy and crusty, there was hair and dirt matted in around the two inch slice.

His legs felt funny.

"Oh shit!" Mattie yelped again, darting forward to catching him as his knees buckled.

She half dropped, half guided him onto the bed where he sat like a stone, spilled tea going down the front of his shirt.

"I'm calling my mum," she announced.

He nodded dumbly as he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the stickiness there.

It felt like there was a heavy wet blanket around his chest that made breathing uncomfortable. Like the time Karen showed up. Like the time they found Max alongside the river. Like the time his father died. Like a wave of insurmountable dread was getting ready to crash down on top of him.

The pain in his head grew with each lungful of air as if the sensation was suddenly delighted that he knew of its existence and was determined to make the most of that awareness. And he became aware of other bits of things as well. He was freezing. He was starving. His legs felt like jelly. His eyes burned. His ribs ached. His jaw popped when he opened his mouth. His fingers were tingling. His beard was too long.

It was getting increasingly harder to keep himself upright.

"Leo?"

Mattie was kneeling in front of him.

"What?" he asked stupidly.

"What happened?"

…

He opened his mouth. Shut it. Squinted.

…

Looked around the room.

…

Took a breath.

…

"Leo…" she said again.

It hit him then, like a cricket ball to the face.

"I…I don't know," he finally said. His voice was small and far away.

Mattie's eyebrows scrunched down. "What do you mean? Like, you were knocked out or something? A gang come after you? Hobb? You didn't see them?"

"I-I don't…I don't know," he repeated.

"That's impos—"

"I don't know how I got here," Leo mumbled. "I don't know when I got here. I don't know what day it is. I don't know why…"

His stomach rolled into knots. A fierce pressure built up behind his eyes. And suddenly he was hyperventilating.

Mattie sat back onto her heels. "Oh _shit_."

He closed his eyes and reached back into his memories. There was an image of a street. He'd walked down that street. Mia and Max had been with him. They'd been laughing. It was dark outside and raining but they were laughing.

But there was sunshine coming through Mattie's window. It was afternoon sun. It wasn't raining.

After the memory of the walk…

…he wanted to puke. Physically, actually, vomit. Because there was nothing after that besides standing in front of Mattie's door five minutes ago. There was a black hole of _nothing_.

"Leo!" Mattie snapped. She looked like she'd been saying his name for a while.

His eyes focused on her with some difficulty as he gasped for air.

"Hey, it's gonna be ok," she said. "Do you have your cell phone on you?"

Wordlessly, he patted down his pockets. They were empty and he shook his head. He drew in a deep breath and held it, trying very hard to stop gasping.

"Do you know where Mia is? Or Max?" Mattie asked next.

"No," he said on an exhale. He balled his hands into fists. "I need to find them."

He jumped up. And immediately the world tilted sideways and he fell into Mattie. She heaved him back onto the bed and he snapped his eyes shut against the vertigo.

"You _need_ to not do anything stupid," she countered. "Look, Mum's on her way. We're gonna take you back to the house and get you sorted."

Leo didn't reply. He kept his eyes closed and tried again to access the memories. His fingers twitched – slowly at first. Then faster.

 _-The street was Saint Thomas Street in Bristol. Mia had been wearing dark wash jeans, a green blouse, brown contacts. Maxie was wearing a big khaki colored jacket and his favorite hat and gray trousers. Leo had been drinking coffee. They were looking for a place to stay for the night. They'd been sharing good memories, laughing about the time Fred had learned how to play a prank. Niska had been the intended victim but she had learned before he did and the joke was on him. Leo had been laughing. Feeling good. It was the 3_ _rd_ _of March, a Wednesday, 9:15 PM._

 _Wednesday._

 _March._

 _Sai-Saint ThomassSSs…_

 _MarchMarchMarch 0915555._

 _"LEEo! R-ru—"_

 _Stree—T 3-0-3. S-mells like—too many people. Muted music playing. The door opened._

 _"Hey…"-  
_

"Arrhhhaaahh!" Leo shrieked. A searing pain sparked through his head. He grabbed it with both hands and gasped.

Mattie yelled something. But her voice was far away.

The pain – something like an electrical battering ram – flared and light strobed behind his eyelids and there was a sound like water _rushing_ rushing RUSHING...

...

..

.

* * *

A/N: To Be Continued (Eventually).


	2. Chapter 2

Mattie perched on the chair as she watched him. Laura was on the phone in the hallway. An hour had passed, maybe two, since he'd passed out. She wanted to take him to the hospital but she knew that couldn't happen. Someone like Leo Elster didn't simply 'go to a hospital'.

So, instead, she plugged him in and googled how to give first aid to seizure victims. Because she was mostly sure that he'd had a seizure. Three minutes of convulsing before it stopped and he went limp. Mattie had removed his jacket, arranged him on the bed, and plugged him in. He hadn't opened his eyes since and her hands wouldn't quit shaking. Mum showed up thirty minutes later, just as confused as Mattie was, but they decided not to move him until he woke up.

If he woke up.

She wasn't really sure he would, if she were being very honest with herself. He didn't look good. Granted, Leo didn't normally look very good anyway. He normally looked like a homeless person. Or, at the very least, he smelled like one. But this was different. He looked _bad_. His skin was pale. There were deep bags under his eyes. His cheeks were sunken in. Underneath the jacket, he was skinnier than he should have been. And he definitely smelled like he'd been on the streets for a while. There was also, of course, the issue of the big bloody wound in his head

Mattie drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, toes dangling over the edge of the chair. "Oh Leo…" she muttered.

He was curled there, on her bed, as limp as a rag doll. How did this man even survive the world around him? How was that possible?

She found herself moving to sit next to him on the bed. He was completely still, not even his fingers were twitching. But he was breathing normally so that was something. Mattie took a wet hand towel and started wiping away the blood on his neck. She carefully dabbed at the skin around the wound, trying to loosen the gooey layer of gore and hair and dandruff, wincing sympathetically. It was a very clean cut, she realized. Not clean as in hygienic – it was anything but that – but clean as in…surgical. Someone had even shaved a small square of skin around the wound. This wasn't done in some sort of fight. It wasn't a bite or a scratch. It was…

It was a flap.

Someone had cut a flap out of his skin. Right at the base of his skull, just above where his spine attached. She knew this because she'd cleared away enough hair that the flap _flopped_ open a little bit.

Mattie sucked in a breath and froze. She waited for Leo to leap up, screaming in horror, but he didn't. He didn't even twitch. So she peered closer.

"Oh gross…" Mattie muttered.

It hadn't really occurred to her that his brain wasn't strictly limited to a bone housing. What was under the skin flap wasn't bone at all. It was sort of plastic-y looking – white but smeared with red, mostly smooth except for a raised bit in the middle of the exposed area that looked, well, like a cap or a plug.

Mattie's fingers automatically reached for it but then she hesitated. She shot a glance towards the door, as if she could tell when her mother would come back. Then she looked down at Leo's face, making sure he wasn't about to wake up. And before she could question the ethics, she reached out and flicked off the little rubber cap.

It was covering a USB port.

In Leo Elster's head.

Mattie peered at it for a long moment. Was his whole skull reconstructed from the synthetic material? If it wasn't, where were the seams? How was his skin connected to his skull? Why wasn't it bleeding worse than it was? Did this plug _directly_ into his brain?

"Matilda, what are you doing?" came her mother's voice.

Mattie yanked her hands away from Leo's head and looked over at her. She had decency to look a little ashamed. "I was just…checking to see if the bleeding had stopped. And, um, you know…clean him up a bit."

Laura came over to check herself. "Oh my god…" she gasped.

"I know. It's weird," Mattie agreed. "That's a USB port."

Laura peered at the wound, the skin flap, the white plastic skull underneath. Mattie glanced over at Leo's face again.

"Like a computer?" her mum asked.

"Yeah, like a computer," Mattie confirmed.

Laura tisked. "Poor thing."

"Yeah."

Mum put a gentle hand on Leo's brow, her maternal instincts on high alert. "Do you think he was attacked?"

"I don't know. I mean, I don't think Mia would have cut into him and just left him alone like this. He couldn't have done it to himself – the cut's too neat—"

"Someone wanted what was in his head," mum surmised.

Mattie frowned. "Well, yeah, maybe."

"Why else cut into his head? Someone knew this was here," she insisted. "Could they have taken his memories?"

Mattie made a face. She hadn't thought of that. She hadn't thought of someone taking Leo's memories. That bothered her.

"I don't know. I have to run some diagnostics," Mattie admitted.

"And find Mia and the others. Can you send them a message?" Laura asked.

She slid off the bed and sat at her computer. "I'll post a message to the head-cracker account that Leo used to find me the first time."

Laura nodded. "That's good."

They lapsed into silence for a while. Mattie posted the message, wishing she could do more. This waiting business wasn't ok. Problems couldn't be solved like this – by doing nothing. Especially stuck in the cramped little university flat that she was in.

"I think I'm going to stay at the house with you and dad this weekend. Until, you know, we figure out whats wrong with Leo," Mattie told her mother.

"Just for the weekend," Laura said. "You need to be back in class on Monday. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Mattie insisted. "I just want to make sure he's ok."

Mum reached over and rubbed a hand down her back. "He'll be ok. We'll sort this out."

Matilda nodded.

She looked over at Leo.

His fingers were moving.

"Mum…"

Laura looked down at him. "Oh thank god."

The scraggly half-synth started twitching, a mewling grunt sound coming out of him with each jolt. It wasn't a violent spasm like before. He was booting up.

Leo's chest heaved upwards as his lungs filled with air. His arms and legs and spine slowly pushed out, straightening. His face was blank and emotionless. Then his eyes fluttered opened.

Blinked.

Reboot complete.

Abruptly, his face shifted from blank to twisted. He groaned and curled into himself, hands floating up to rub at his face.

"Leo?"

He peered up at Mattie and Laura through a squinty, frowny, mess of shaggy hair and tired blue eyes.

"What happened?" he grumbled.

"You had a seizure," Mattie told him.

He processed that for a moment, grunting and glowering.

"How are you feeling?" Laura asked.

"Mm like…like I can't think of anything clever to say," he muttered, closing his eyes and wincing. "I gotta…I gotta find Mia…"

He made a move as if to stand up on his own.

"Don't be stupid," Mattie barked. She started detaching the cables from his stomach.

"She's right, Leo. You can't go anywhere on your own like this. We've sent out a message. They'll figure out where to find you. Meanwhile, you're coming home with us. It's not safe here for you," Mum said smartly.

Leo glared at the two of them. It wasn't intimidating. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, as if that'd prove to them that he could leave by himself. Mattie was not impressed.

"Don't look at me like that," she told him sharply. " _You_ came to _me_ for help." She handed him a glass of water.

"I don't know _why_ I came to you," he countered, just as sharply. "I can't remember anything that happened in the last…what day is it?"

"Friday—"

"Two days! I've lost two days of time," Leo growled. "I don't know why I'm even here. So don't…don't get all—"

"All what? Caring?" Mattie snapped. "Leo, we had made plans to meet up today!"

"…we did?" he asked cautiously, deflating a little.

She dug out her phone and found the conversation that they'd had - all the messages working out a day and time for him to come and help her with her project. She shoved the screen in front of his face.

He was quiet for a moment. Then, "….we had this conversation four days ago."

"Yeah."

"It's not the 5th."

"No, it's the 12th…" Mattie said slowly.

Leo took a drink of water – a long, contemplative drink, as if he needed to perform some sort of action to prevent a panic attack.

"That's nine days," he finally said in a half whisper, not looking at either Hawkins woman. "I need to go."

Leo pushed off the bed and stood on wobbly legs.

"Leo!" Mattie hissed.

"I'm fine."

"Like hell you are!"

"Look, thank you for…whatever. But I need to go," he said.

"You need help," Mattie insisted.

"Let him go, Mattie," Laura injected. We'll just wait until he passes out in the hallway. _Then_ we'll drag him to the car and take him home to wait for the others."

Mattie looked over at her mom, who held an impressively cool indifference on her face as she looked at Leo. She forgot sometimes that she really was her mother's child in all the right ways.

Leo made a face as he stood there, swaying. He stumbled a few awkward steps to the door and stopped, planting a hand on the wall. His knees trembled visibly.

Stubborn ass.

Mattie came alongside him and pulled his arm around her shoulder.

"W-what are you—"

"I'm helping you," she said flatly. Her arm wrapped around his waist and she grabbed his belt from behind, supporting his weight.

Leo looked at her with his piercing, troubled eyes. Those eyes were hesitant, frustrated, and scared. Mattie didn't say anything, she just held his gaze and opened the door. Together, they hobbled out, down the stairs, to the car – not speaking. Laura followed after them. There was still no speaking as Laura pulled out onto the road and started towards home.

Leo hunched in the back seat, just as pale as before but he seemed more aware than before. More awake. Older.

"I'll drop you and Leo off at home and then go and get Sophie from school and take her to the Jones for the night. Make sure he eats, please," Laura told her. "I want you to—"

The car windows exploded.

A wrenching, concussive force punched the vehicle sideways.

It bounced, tipped, skidded down the street, came to a screeching stop on its side.

Car horns were blaring. People were shouting. Metal was settling.

And darkness crept over her senses.

* * *

To Be Continued - Reviews are welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

There was a force holding him in place.

There was a painful, nail-ripping-off sort of feeling at the back of his head.

There was a smell like hospitals and rubbing alcohol.

There was a sound like CPU cooling fans.

There were floor tiles in front of his face.

Leo pulled out of unconsciousness like he was crawling out of a muddy pit of snakes. He knew which direction to go and he knew he needed to get there quickly but it was slow going all the same. Because his body was _done_. It hurt. It was tired. There was zero energy left in his reserves.

He grunted and tried to sit up.

Couldn't.

Because he was facedown. And his arms were immobile. And his head was immobile. And his legs and hips. And that didn't make sense.

The snakes. The muddy pit of snakes.

He _needed_ to come awake completely.

Leo was breathing hard. He brought the weight of his electronic brain to bear. There'd been a car accident after they left the university housing. Some men had come and dragged Mattie out of the car. They left Laura. Both Hawkins women had been unconscious. And then the men stuck Leo with a needle as he kicked at them and scrambled to get out of the car. The sedative knocked him out cold.

Instinct was screaming at him. This was a bad situation.

He tried to sit up again and still couldn't. The sting of straps across his skin finally registered. He was lying face down on an exam table with his face through a cutout.

He groaned.

"Ah, finally awake, Mr. Elster?" came a voice.

Leo instinctively jerked against the restraints, going nowhere.

"Please, don't harm yourself," cooed the voice. A gloved hand settled on his bare shoulder and Leo did his best to shrink away from the contact.

"Who are you?" Leo hissed. "What's going on?"

"Don't be stupid, boy," the voice chided. "Did you think I wouldn't get you back to finish what we started? I've taken further steps to ensure you can't wander off this time."

The hand trailed down his spine to the strap at his back and tugged at it.

Leo's mouth went dry. "You took my memories. Why?"

"Did I?" asked the voice, sounding perfectly astonished. "Curious. Now, how do you suppose that happened? Was it the MRI? Perhaps the shock therapy? I'm afraid I've done so much poking it's hard to determine the culprit." A chuckle.

"What do you want from me?" Leo pressed, ignoring him.

"You truly don't remember?"

His response was to lurch against the restraints again. He needed to be free. He needed to run.

"My family! What did you do to my family!" he yelled.

"Your…family. The two synths? They've been deactivated," the voice said with a smug bite to it. "Oh I've disposed of them already. I haven't a need for conscious Synths."

Leo was finding it difficult to breathe again. His whole body was quivering.

"You _bastard_!" Leo screeched. "Who the HELL are you!?"

"Shh shh," the voice said. A hand was petting his shoulder. "I'm the man who will be immortal."

* * *

Clifford Oberlin regarded the young machine with something like parental disgruntlement. It was a mess. Dirty, grimy, blood gone everywhere. Why, one would be tempted to think that whomever had done this to it was something of a madman. Oberlin had slight psychopathic tendencies and a very low EQ but he was _not_ a madman.

He snapped his fingers at the two synths in the room.

"Wynken, clean up Mr. Elster and disinfect the flesh wounds," Oberlin ordered. "And please, Blynken, start intravenous rehydration. It looks a bit thirsty and I can't have it expiring from something as ordinary as infection, now, can I?"

The two scrubbed androids smartly sprang into action. One started to sponge away the dirt. The other began fitting the arm with a large needle. Their perfect movements were inspiring.

Mr. Elster squirmed and whimpered. "Please! Stop! Why are you doing this?!" it yelped. "I-I don't understand! What are you doing!? What do you want!?"

Clifford squinted at the cyborg. They'd definitely covered those questions days ago. Had he really taken away the memories so easily? That certainly hadn't been his intention.

He kneeled down and peered under the table at the comically smooshed face of the young machine as it came through the cutout. "Please, don't trouble yourself, Mr. Elster. I have no need for you to understand. All you need do is… _exist_."

Clifford smiled.

He straightened and started towards the door. It was lunch time. But he had the feeling that he was forgetting something. "Blynken, please give Mr. Elster a healthy dose of diazepam. If it is sufficiently docile then afterwards, please release it into the exercise room and bring it a sandwich. We'll continue our research at two o'clock."

The young machine started screaming at him then, using terribly obscene language. It was going to injure itself but Oberlin couldn't stop that. It wasn't his fault if the idiot device had no self-preservation in the face of rage.

"Blynken, perhaps administer the diazepam before you disinfect the wounds. Double the dose. Thank you."

And still, Clifford knew he'd forgotten something. He drummed his fingers against his lips. It was nagging there, at the back of his mind, as he crossed the lab. He'd covered the clean-up, the admonishment, the welcome-back, the valium, the sandwich… Ah yes. The threat.

Clifford snapped his fingers and spun around. "Mr. Elster, I nearly forgot. You're very wily. I've brought in one of your friends to help keep you docile and tame. Her ID says she's called Matilda Hawkins. If you attempt escape again, I will remove her skin and sew you a new coat."

For the first time since waking, Elster was still.

"Don't…don't hurt her. Please. She was just trying to help me. She didn't…she didn't know how dangerous I am to be around," Elster said in a heavy voice. "She's not connected to me. She wasn't supposed to help me."

It was a lie, of course.

"Ah, a Good Samaritan? They do so often stick their noses where they don't belong. Bothersome creatures," Oberlin sighed obligingly. "Well, so it goes. Never the less, her life is now in your hands. Please consider that before you attempt to escape. Hmm? Relax, Mr. Elster. Have a sandwich. I'll talk to you soon."

He gave the cybernetic young man a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Yes, that was all. It was time for lunch now.

* * *

Four walls, painted concrete blocks, padded vinyl floor, ceiling out of reach, caged tungsten light, steel door.

How unimaginative for a holding cell. No oozing cracks in the walls, no sputtering light bulbs, no howling monsters down the hall. Just an ominous black dome camera in the corner.

Mattie was unimpressed.

She paced around the room again, arms crossed firmly across her stomach. She couldn't settle. Not since she woke up. No one had come to explain anything to her. She'd pounded and pounded on the steel door but there hadn't been an answer.

Anxiety gurgled in her stomach.

She fingered the plaster on her forehead which was covering a cut but didn't do anything to stop the migraine. Her wrist hurt as well and it was wrapped tightly in layers of crepe bandage. She didn't know who did the wrapping.

Mattie finished a lap of the room and glared up at the camera. She flashed a two fingered salute to whomever was watching. The camera merely gazed on, unbothered.

"Come on!" she growled into the empty room. "Someone tell me what's going on!"

Silence.

Mattie pressed her back to the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the thick padded floor. She rubbed at her temples and swallowed back tears. Or tried to, anyway. The tears still came in quiet dribbles down her cheeks.

God, why did the Leo always attract trouble? Why did he always drag it to her family? If her mother was seriously hurt…she wasn't sure she'd be able to forgive him. Sure, it might not have been his fault but he was the only one she could blame right now because whomever was behind this had not been made known to her. Because whomever was behind this was a wanker.

Someone was unlocking the door, she could hear key in the lock.

Mattie scrambled to her feet.

A trickle of fear came down her spine. She balled her hands into fists and faced the door as it swung outward. It was a Synth – a short redheaded female in a crisp blue nurse's tunic.

"Hey, where am I?" Mattie snapped as soon as the door was completely open.

The Synth looked at her and smiled. It didn't answer.

"You stupid scrubber," Mattie muttered.

The Synth turned and pulled a cart inside. It busied itself with unloading the cart, placing a neat stack of blankets in the corner. It wasn't watching her.

Mattie chewed her lip for a moment. Then she took two quick steps towards the open door. She raised her foot for a third step and then pain erupted in her wrapped wrist. Mattie fell to her knees, crying out. She craned her head back to see the Synth holding tightly to her arm. The machine smiled at her, pleasantly.

"Ok, ok, I'm going back to my corner," Mattie gasped.

She scrambled backwards, one arm painfully suspended. The Synth didn't let go until Mattie was back where she started. When it did let go, Mattie hugged her arm to her chest and curled into a tight ball, glaring at the Synth. The Synth merely continued unloading its cart and then left, shutting the door behind it.

What it left for Mattie was two blankets, two bottles of water, a bucket, and two trays of food. But before she could examine the things, the door opened again and a person was unceremoniously tossed inside. And then the door was shut and locked again.

The person, a man, was shirtless, shoeless, and crumpled in a languid pile at the door, groaning softly. It took her several moments of staring before she realized the pale half-naked man was Leo. And then relief sparked in her heart. The two of them would be able to find a way out of this. They were both brilliant. It would be as simple as breathing.

Mattie crawled over to him and gently rolled him onto his back.

"Hey, you ok?" she asked.

He lifted his head with herculean effort and looked around. With a huff, he let his head drop back down.

"Leo, can you hear me?" Mattie asked slowly.

Languidly, he blinked at her, frowning. "Mm, no."

"No you can't hear me? Then how did you hear the question?" she pressed.

He squinted at her, lips pushed into a confused pile on his mouth. "No, m'not… k. I c'n hear you," he slurred.

Mattie made a face. She bent down and pried his eyelids open. His eyes were slightly yellow. That didn't strike her as a favorable condition. He batted her hand away.

"…fine, m'fine, m'fine. Jus' dizzy…" Leo mumbled.

"What'd they give you?" she asked.

His head flopped back and forth on the floor. "Uhmmm…valium, I'think."

"How much?" Mattie pressed.

"…lot."

She chewed back a curse.

"Ok. Ok." Mattie took a deep breath. Leo was out as a resource. Totally out. "Leo, do you know what's happening?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "I dunno. He wants…me…for som'fing. I dunno."

"Who?"

Leo shrugged helplessly and looked at her with sad eyes. "Dunno."

He started shivering.

Mattie stood up and started pacing again, her fingers interlaced around the back of her head. She chewed on her lip.

"Not Hobb?" she asked.

Leo shook his head, staring at the ceiling now, still quivering. He looked like he wanted to jump up and break down the door. Which would be really stupid, of course. He was seriously high on blues. The best she could hope for at this point was that he didn't start vomiting all over the place.

Mattie glanced over at the bucket in the corner and wrinkled her nose.

"Right, so do you remember any of the layout—Leo!"

He'd gotten to his feet. Took a step. And promptly fell sideways.

"You stupid twit!" she hissed.

And then he puked and she groaned.

"Oh that's just…that's just good, isn't it?" Mattie said a bit hysterically. "We're so dead."

* * *

To Be Continued


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: So sorry for the delay! I recently moved out of the country and have just now settled enough in my new home to write the next chapter. There will probably be long stretches inbetween chapters now as I continue to adjust and get my life sorted.

Anyway, here you go!

* * *

Hospitals were stupid.

Completely and totally inane concepts. Granted, she understood the why's of them. Human bodies were stupidly fragile and inefficient. Like flowers, they withered all too easily. She knew this. She understood the necessity of hospitals. What she did not understand was why humans reacted so terribly to them and in them. It was infuriatingly annoying.

Yes, your fellow human might die. What else did you expect? One would think that a human would know to expect terrible things to happen to another humans body and be able to deal with those things in a calm, rational manner.

They did not.

They wailed and cursed and bemoaned their terrible fortune with more emotion than was really necessary.

"Nessie!" came a young voice. Sophie was getting taller. She was getting less "child". Now _there_ was an interesting human ability – growth.

Despite herself, Niska grinned. "Hello Soph."

The girl was running to her and slamming into her in a great full hug. Niska _obligingly_ hugged her back. And kissed the top of her head.

"I can't believe you're here! I didn't think you'd ever come back!" Sophie cried.

Niska didn't address that. "Where's your mum, Sophie?"

Dutifully, the little girl pointed to a door. "She's there. Are you going to stay for a while?"

"No, I've got to find my family," Niska told her. She didn't flinch away when Sophie slipped her hand into Niska's and led her to the room.

"But you didn't want to be family anymore," Sophie pointed out.

"No, I didn't want to be around them for a while," Niska insisted. "And now they've gotten lost and they need my help."

Sophie thought about this for a long moment before: "And you've always got to help your family."

"Exactly," Niska confirmed.

Sophie nodded. She opened the door to a room with two beds and various bits of medical equipment. Only one bed was occupied. An unconscious broken woman was in the bed, hooked to various bits and boobs of medical equipment. Laura.

Joe was perched at her side. Toby was hunched in the far corner, trying to get lost in his phone. As she and Sophie came in, Joe was instantly alert.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he growled, giving her an unsavory glare.

"I had nothing to do with this," Niska snapped. "Stop looking at me as if I was the who beat her."

Joe's face twitched. His expression didn't change. Of course it didn't. Niska heaved a sigh and did her best to recalibrate her approach in this matter. Bluntness did not often grant her easy access to humans. It was another irritating thing.

"My sympathies go out to you and your family," she said tightly, recalling a similar saying on a card of flowers down the hall. "How is she doing?"

Joe looked down at his wife, his face pale. "She's been hit by a car."

Niska glanced at the chart. Several serious fractures and contusions. A nasty gash along her forearm. What was most serious, however, was the concussion. She hadn't woken up yet.

"I'm sure…she'll be fine," Niska said. Joe just looked at her. Niska tried to give him a reassuring smile. "Any word yet on Mattie and Leo?"

"No. Why are you here, Niska?" Joe snapped.

"Because," Sophie started, "she has to help her family. They need her help and they're family so she has to try to help them."

Joe looked from her to Sophie and back again.

"I don't know where they are," Niska admitted. "Any of them. They've all gone missing."

"When did you last contact them?" he asked.

"Last week. Could you please let me know when Laura's awake? I need to ask her some questions," Niska asked. She handed him a phone number scrawled across a napkin. "I'm going to find them, Joe."

Joe nodded silently. He did not trust her and she did not hold it against him. So she turned to Sophie and smiled.

"Be a good girl, Soph," she told the little girl.

"Are you coming back?" Sophie asked with wide eyes.

Niska didn't have an answer. She abruptly turned away and walked out. It was the easiest thing to do. She could only hope it'd be as easy to find DS Drummond.

* * *

Leo stared down at the corner of the room. His head felt stuffy and thick. There was a patch of numbness at the base of his neck. He didn't touch the numbness because behind a bandage was a piece of skin that wasn't completely attached and the thought of it made his stomach churn. He couldn't afford another provocation to his stomach.

"You really didn't know it was there?" came Mattie's far-away-tinny-distorted voice. Words made his head hurt. Badly.

He did not shake his head. "No. No I did not know that there was an access port in my skull," he grumbled with a curl of his lip. He shuddered a little violently and he didn't know why.

"How much do you wanna bet that it has something to do with your memory loss—"

"My family is dead!" he screeched. And then his vision went blurry for a few moments. Hot tears of anger leaked out of his eyes. Sad tears too. Devastated tears. When his vision cleared, Mattie was sitting down really close to him. She had a sad face on.

"We don't know that for sure," she insisted.

"I do," he said dully, shuddering again. A light strobed behind his eyes, streaks of pulsating green.

"Did you see bodies?" Mattie challenged. She was always doing that. Why did she have to do that? His life was hard enough as it was without some stupid girl fumbling around in his affairs. Never mind that she was clever and beautiful and didn't look at him like he was a freak of nature.

"They're gone, Mattie."

"But you don't know!"

"I do…"

"You don—"

"I KNOW!" he screamed. And then he regretted it. As soon as he reached the peak of his anger, he was met with a crushing wave of sadness. It cascaded over him with strobing lights and cold fingers of hopelessness.

Leo started crying in earnest. Great wracking sobs shook his weary frame. He curled into a tight ball and buried his head between his knees and cried. So thick was his sorrow that he didn't even care that Mattie had put her arms around him. He just leaned into her and rode out the seemingly endless wave of emotion.

It wasn't endless though.

When the emotion was spent, he found himself half in her lap and half on the floor, on his side. He sat there for several silent moments, exhausted. Achy. Shaky. Too hot. Then he sat up and shrugged away from Mattie. Human to human contact was a bit too weird.

"I think there's something wrong with me…" he mumbled.

"I think it's the valium," Mattie said softly. "It can really mess you up if you take too much. And I don't think it'd work the same ways for you as it does for other people. Since, you know, you've got computer bits."

He nodded in agreement and they were both silent for a long time.

"Walk me through it again," Mattie finally said.

Leo belabored a heaving sigh. "There's one…mad scientist. I was in an examination room or an operating theatre or something. There's two synths and they walked me through…a short hallway or something. This room was near by. There were stairs further on. That's it. That's all I remember."

"Windows, other humans…"

He shrugged, haplessly. "I didn't see anything."

"Or you forgot it," she added and he glared at her for reminding him that he'd forgotten before.

Mattie didn't see him glare. She was on her feet again, pacing, sandwich in hand. He wished she'd just sit down. Her pacing made him nervous in a slow and sluggish sort of way.

"You got anything on you that could pick a lock?" she asked him.

Leo gestured down to his single article of clothing, scrub pants, and gave her an exasperated look.

"Right, sorry," she said with a wave of her hand. "There's just…there's got to be a way out of this."

He ran his hands through hair, which was unnervingly clean. Mattie had the right thinking – escape. That's where his head should have been. But it was getting harder and harder to be motivated to do anything except sit. He felt like a hollow shell that was only filled with the smoky vapor of sadness and an electrical storm of despair. It didn't really matter anymore what happened to him. Not if Mia and Max were gone.

"Hey," Mattie was saying. She was kneeling in front of him and he realized that he was crying again.

Leo rubbed at his face and shook his head. "Don't. Don't do that. I'm fine."

She looked at him for a long moment. The sympathy there made his stomach churn. It made him feel weak. Small. Broken.

"Yeah, ok," Mattie said quietly. She gave him a small quirk of her lips and then she kindly looked away. "Synths can connect to other Synths, right? Can you?"

"I don't do that," he said flatly, staring at the floor, shuddering.

"Right but _can_ you?" she pressed.

He nodded.

"Could you…hack one? From your own brain."

He just looked at her, letting all of the exhaustion and anger and bad feelings play across his face. To his surprise, she actually looked a little hurt for it and he felt bad. But he didn't say anything. He just slowly tilted sideways until he was laying on his side.

And then he closed his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

_Sorry for the lateness - still struggling to find some semblance of normalcy in my life. But here's a slightly longer chapter than normal :)_

* * *

"You mean say, Drummond, that you have no idea who took my brother?" Niska hissed dangerously.

The portly Detective Sergeant raised his eyebrow at her. He didn't do her the courtesy of being intimidated and that bothered her.

"I mean to say that it isn't my case and I haven't anything to do with the investigation," Drummond said hotly.

Her eyebrows quirked into a frown. "Can't you ask around or look up files or do anything useful at all?"

"I'm not your bloody errand boy," he growled.

"You don't care about them? About Mattie Hawkins?" she challenged.

He made a face. "It's not that I don't care. I don't have time for this. There are people – _good_ people – working on the case, I'm sure."

"People who don't know what Leo is. Who don't know about Mia and Max and what _they_ are. Do you realize how badly this could go for them?" Niska pressed.

"I'm sorry," Drummond said. And that was all he said. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair.

Niska's eyes narrowed. Her lips pressed into a firm, thin line.

"I'll tell them what she is. What she really is. I'll find her and expose her to the world and you will be exposed right along with her," Niska said. There was no need to tell him who 'she' was. There was no need to expound on that threat. He was smart enough fill in the blanks.

Drummonds eyes grew as hard and cold as ice. Fear sparked inside of them. And when he muttered a curse under his breath, she knew she had him.

"I'll see what I can do," he muttered. "Get the hell out of my office."

"Thank you," Niska said automatically. "I'll be in touch."

* * *

It must have been an hour since Leo had been tossed through the door. Maybe more. After he'd stopped crying and screaming, Leo had fallen into a sort of… _deadness_. It didn't feel like Leo. He wasn't normally quiet about his opinions. He voiced himself very easily. Enthusiastically, even. He was a fairly external person – at least, as external as one could get when one perpetually hated humanity. He reacted outwardly.

What Leo was _now_ was not simply 'quiet'. He was heavy. Still. Gone. It was like he'd given up and they'd only just arrived.

Mattie went to the corner of things that the Synth had brought and fished out a bottle of water.

"Take this," Mattie said firmly. She stood in front of him, water bottle extended, and he wouldn't look at her. His eyes were pointed elsewhere and his bottom jaw jutted out a little, like a petulant child. She glared at him. "Ok, look, _this_ ," she gestured vaguely to the whole of him, "is stupid. I get it. You're upset. Shit's happening and it isn't going to stop any time soon. More shit is going to happen if you keep up this 'woe is me' thing. You can have a proper melt down when we're safe. But we aren't safe now and I need you, Leo. I _need_ you. So you need to pull it together and drink this water."

His eyes flicked up to her – those yellowed eyes that were so sad and so weary and so dopy.

Mattie chewed her lip and did her best to look confident in his abilities. He didn't say anything. Not a thanks. Not an acknowledgement of her speech. Nothing. Just silence.

She set the bottle in front of him and stomped to the other wall..

This was impossible. Absolutely bloody impossible.

This was not a situation one gets out of. This was merely a tragedy in the making. A terrifically terrible news story that would splash across London just as soon as they found her corpse stuffed in the wall of some psychopaths basement which probably wouldn't be for a decade or two.

Mattie pushed her hair back from her face. She drew in a deep lungful of air and let it out in a rush.

"You hurt your wrist?" Leo suddenly asked in a funny voice. He was watching her from across the room, eyebrows pushed into a frown.

She just looked at him. Was he serious?

"I-I'm sorry," Leo mumbled.

Mattie didn't know how respond to that but there was no time to dwell on it, however, as they both heard the metallic clank of a lock being undone at the big steel door.

Leo went stiff.

"I'll be here when you get back, ok?" she said simply. "Try look around if you can."

He nodded.

The door swung open and the two Synths came in, wheeling a gurney between them. The one female Synth patted the gurney expectantly. Leo made a face, hesitated, stood, and went to it. As soon as he sat on it, they fixed straps to his wrists and ankles.

Mattie felt sick but she forced herself to study the situation. She looked out the open door. The wall beyond wasn't particularly telling. Concrete block walls painted white. They took Leo out to this hallway and turned right. The male Synth walked on with the gurney, out of sight, but the female came back almost immediately with a bucket of water and a mop. She efficiently mopped up the puddles of sick that Leo had left behind from earlier – smiling cheerfully.

Mattie watched her with a gray sort of appreciation. "Thanks," she mumbled to the Synth. "What's your name?"

The Synth straightened with perfect movements. "I am called Blynken. You are welcome, Matilda Hawkins."

Mattie frowned. The degree of politeness did not match the situation but perhaps... "Blynken…did you wrap up my wrist earlier?"

"Yes, Matilda Hawkins," came the courteous response.

"My head really hurts. Could I… please have something for the pain?" Mattie asked, tentatively.

The Synth's head dipped. "Certainly. One moment, please."

And then she was gone. The door was shut and locked behind her.

Mattie's eyes narrowed in perplexity. It wasn't a full two minutes before Blynken reappeared with a bottle of water and a dose of Panadol. The Synth waited patiently for Mattie to swallow the pills. As soon as she did, Mattie jumped in with another question.

"Could I please have a couple of pillows?" Mattie asked.

"I'm sorry," said Blynken. "There are no spare pillows on the premises. Perhaps I could interest you in an extra blanket."

"Yeah, that'd be great," Mattie reassured her, with a quizzical look on her face. "Hey, I lost my phone. Do you think I could borrow one?"

"I'm sorry, use of communicative devices is not allowed at this time."

"Right, don't suppose you'd let me get out and run around, eh?"

"I'm sorry but you must remain here until further notice," Blynken insisted.

"Yeah, I thought so. Is there any chance I could go use the bathroom? Under supervision, of course," Mattie ventured.

"I'm sorry. You are not permitted to leave the room. A sufficient receptacle has been provided for your bodily functions. You must remain here until further notice. May I help you with anything else, Matilda Hawkins?"

Mattie glared over at the bucket in the corner with a lip curl of disgust. "No."

The Synth bobbed her head politely and withdrew from the room, carefully locking the door behind her.

* * *

Clifford regarded the young cybernetic creature with something like pity. But only 'like' it. He didn't feel real pity anymore, of course, but he knew that if a normal person were looking right now as he was doing, pity would be the correct sentiment.

Ah well. Work to do.

Mr. Elster was flipped onto its belly and Wynken dutifully inserted an IV into its arm. While Synth began some basic administrations, Oberlin pulled out a list of questions that he had jotted down during lunch. It was very exciting having Elster back. He could hardly contain his enthusiasm.

"Do you dream, Mr. Elster?" Oberlin asked it.

There was no answer.

Oberlin sighed. He gave the lad a firm thwak on the shoulder and it flinched.

"That was not a rhetorical question. Do you dream?" he asked again, more firmly this time. The nerve of the thing. This was an exciting time of discovery!

"…Yes," came the begrudging reply.

"Are your dreams recorded in your memory banks?"

"Yes."

"Are your dreams memories or newly developed material?"

A hesitation. "Both," it replied.

Interesting. It retained some semblance of a creative subconscious. How very human.

"Do you write poetry, Mr. Elster? Paint? Sing?"

"No."

"Hmm."

Oberlin pressed on down his list of questions, knowing Wynken was recording each answer as it was given. Leo Elster responded as simply as possible and would not elaborate. It was to be expected. But questions helped with research and direct questioning with the human interface was significantly faster than sifting through a pile of data. And—

Oh, dear.

The fleshy housing that was the young man was starting to sag into the examination table. More than usual, anyway. His answers had steadily become softer and softer. Just as well, Clifford was beginning to tire of asking.

"You probably need a charge, don't you?" Clifford asked absentmindedly. He pulled up the wadding of bandage around Elster's middle and made a face. "What a mess…we really should fix this, Wynken. Please fabricate the proper hardware. We'll implant a standard Synth charging port. We'll have to make some modifications, of course, so that it'll take to human skin. Please have that ready by tomorrow. No worries, Mr. Elster, we'll get you charged up before bedtime."

Elster did not seem thrilled at that.

"But first," Oberlin said with a clap, "let's have a crack at that head of yours while you are too tired to resist me, eh?"

* * *

Leo shuddered as the skin on his neck was peeled downward. Something like a blind panic was creeping up on him. His hands curled into anxious fists. His quivering lungs made breathing unbearably loud. The air was too cold on his goose-pimpled skin.

He closed his eyes.

The seconds stuttered by.

Blood rushed in his ears.

A warm Synth hand was on his neck.

A painful pop of static electricity—

And, abruptly, with a rushing sigh, he went limp. His senses went black. Dark. Completely void and numb. Except his ears.

" _That's good, then."_ A dreamy far away voice. _"Accessing safe-mode_."

The keyboard clicks were loud and metallic and, after a delay, he felt the darkness around him expand. Lighten. Turn to a gray misty fog.

Leo blinked languidly. The fog around him did not dissipate. And it was not misty. It was tingly.

He peered around and it was endless gray. Gray below. Gray above. He was standing and he did not comprehend how such a thing were possible. He also did not fully understand the sensations that came from within him and wrapped around his skin. It was not pain. It was not touch. It was not nausea or itchiness or burning or freezing. It was neither intolerable nor enjoyable.

There was a sound like heavy muted cymbals in a familiar pattern.

And a file cabinet was next to him. It was shiny black. Without really stopping to consider what he was doing, Leo pulled the top drawer open. It was stuffed full of files. The manila files smelled like a thousand different things and were in various states of aging.

He blinked at them.

There was a sort of notion in the back of his mind, right at the base of his skull, that he should flick through the files in the cabinet. And so, because his curiosity agreed with the notion, he did. Without any sense of rushing, he walked his fingertips across the tops of the file folders and his skin tingled.

He stopped at one near the back. It was a dark brown and splotchy from years of handling, the paper cover made velvety with use. It smelled like the outside, like leaves and grass and sunshine. The smell filled him with peace and he smiled, closing his eyes to savor it.

When he opened his eyes again, the fog had vanished.

He and the cabinet were outside and he knew immediately where 'outside' was. It was the park near his childhood home. He was much smaller and the world was much larger. And Mum was smiling before him. He could smell her perfume now. She was reaching for him. He ran to her. Her arms were around him and she was lifting him into the air with a trill of laughter.

As she set him down, the outside melted back into fog and he was himself again, holding a closed file.

Leo blinked again, a slight wisp of smile still on his face.

H e carefully placed the file back where it belonged and reached for another. This one was also near the back, also brown and old. This one did not smell good. The smell of hospital reached to him and he already knew that this was not a lovely thing but that did not stop his hands from opening it.

When the fog lifted, he was small again, as before. He was indeed in a hospital but it was the special floor for special cases. Mum was behind the door and he could only just see her feet from where he stood with his nose pressed to the window. With some hesitation, he knocked a childs fist on the window – as he had always done and would always do. His father then appeared behind him, scowling. Anger. Fear. Leo's hand was smacked away and he was swiftly carried down the hall. Peering back, Leo saw the doctor enter mum's room. And he heard her screaming.

And the scene disappeared into mist.

Leo was crying softly. The file in his fingers trembled. He put it away.

He did not want to look at the files anymore.

The notion at the back of his mind prompted him to keep looking. He did not. He slid the drawer closed and stepped backwards away from it. He bumped into something behind him and turned to look—

The file cabinet was there, behind him, sitting with a heavy sort of expectancy.

 _Come now, Mr. Elster…_

Leo frowned.

He was quite certain that he should be alarmed or angry but neither reaction was responding to the situation. The notion urged him to open the cabinet again and he pulled it open. Thumbed through the files. Not the old brown ones – those were too old and too fragile. He was looking for an old file but one that was crisp and clean because it was hardly ever used. He found one file that looked sufficient and opened it.

He was inside of his father's private lab, sitting on the edge of the exam bed. It smelled like cleaning solution and his father's cologne and Leo felt anxious. Mia was sitting in a chair off to his left, smiling sweetly. His father peered down at him - not in kindly affection, not in anger, not in disappointment. In fact, he was not looking at Leo as a father looks at a son in any way whatsoever. He was looking down at lab results. At an experiment. At a machine. But Leo was not a very young boy anymore and he wasn't content with being stuck all over with needles and things.

Anger rippled through the scene.

Leo was shouting at his father, jumping off the bed and stomping towards the door. Mia made a move to stop him. His father shouted back, grabbed at his arm—

Leo slammed the file shut.

He held the shut file in his hands and concentrated very hard.

 _Mr. Elster, if you please!_

These things were very important – the file cabinet, the files, the fog, the notions – but he was having incredible difficulty holding on to them. He closed his eyes but the fog was there, behind his eyelids as well. The file cabinet was before him, open and waiting. The file was in his hands and he hated it with as much passion as he could muster and when the passion started to slip away, he reached back into the file and felt the rage until he could take it no longer.

With a herculean effort, he ripped the file in half.

The hatred dissolved away into an unhurried confusion.

The pieces of the file slipped through his hands and disappeared into the fog.

And Leo wasn't at all certain what had just happened but he was very sure that he was not going to touch the file cabinet anymore.

With a dreamy sort of sureness, he sat down and closed his eyes and the darkness accepted him again.

* * *

Clifford slammed his fist on the table. "Damn!"

It had been a promising memory. So _so_ promising. But the interface had shut it down and Young Leo Elster was coming to the edge of his charge.

He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers across his nose. "Well, we're in the right section, anyway," he said absentmindedly to the Synth. "It won't be long until we find what we're looking for. Give it a brief charge to get it through the night and then send it off to its room. We'll continue in the morning."

Wynken wordlessly obeyed.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: *DRAMATIC GASP* I...have...UPDATED! Sorry for the prolonged delay. Things happened.

* * *

Mattie was on her knees in front of him. His eyes were a little clearer than before and there was an expression on his face that she hadn't seen in a while. Like an inventor sorting out a problem.

"What happened?" she asked again.

Leo opened his mouth to answer but shut it when no words came out. He squinted, chin tilted to the side.

"Leo?" Mattie pressed.

His eyes flicked to her. They were troubled, heavy, but _alert_. His knee bounced up and down.

"It accesses my memories. Directly accesses them," he told her. Leo went back to staring at nothing but she could see his brain kicking into high gear.

"…The port in the back," she supplemented.

He nodded.

Mattie rocked back onto her rump. "Well, I guess that makes sense. If you've lost memories, I mean, something had to have happened. So, what, is this guy dumping things?"

Leo shook his head. "I…I think I did it. I think he's looking for something and I didn't want him to have it. I don't know what." He paused, his brow wrinkling. He looked at her again. "I think I can delete my own memories."

A beat. A moment. A space in which anything was possible.

"You…" Mattie trailed off.

And then a slightly hysterical grin picked up the corners of his mouth.

"I can get rid of all of it," Leo said, a greedy light in his eyes. "I can delete all the horrible things that have happened. Just…" He made a vague dispersing motion with his hands. "Gone."

She gave him a dubious look.

"Hey, let's consider that when we get out of here, yeah? Don't go hating away your life until we're safe. Ok?" Mattie said carefully. "Talk me through what happened."

Leo shrugged. "He plugged me in. Opened an interface with my memory banks. Things were…weird. Like I didn't have complete control. Like he was trying to make me do things. But I can do what I want if I concentrate…"

He went quite, closing his eyes, frowning in effort.

There were a few moments of quiet.

"Leo?"

"I can't find it now. The files," he said in a dreamy voice. "I can't access safe-mode. Why wouldn't he let me do that?"

"The doctor?"

"My father. Why would he put that in my brain but not let me access it on my own?" His eyes were open, staring at nothing, angry.

"Maybe he—"

"Selfish bastard. I can't believe that he'd do something like that."

"Ok, but—"

"That's a lie. Of course he'd do something like that. That's exactly what he'd do. Control the data. Because that's all I ever was to him… What?" He suddenly looked at her and nearly flinched away – which was fair because she was glaring pretty significantly.

"Nothing," she snapped. She sat next to him and propped her elbows on her knees.

"…Look, this…this is important," he ventured.

She did not look at him. "Yeah. Ok."

There was a heavy silence and Mattie let it have its way with them. She ran her fingers through her hair and absentmindedly twirled a few pieces into a thin, scraggly braid.

Perhaps it would be possible to get the jump on the synths. If she could just access the power buttons in the chins, they'd be out of the picture – one less obstacle. Assuming the power buttons were still easily accessible. It wasn't unheard of to reinforce the chin piece or move the button altogether to a less accessible place. Highly illegal, of course, but effective if you wanted your synth to keep functioning when someone tried to power it down. Someone like her.

She considered overpowering one but without Leo's help, she doubted she'd be able to pull that off without breaking something. Brawn was not her strength. Wits would have to prevail.

"Look," came Leo's thick voice next to her, "I know we need to escape. I know that."

"Do you?" She looked sideways at him. His knee had stopped bouncing.

"I'm not an idiot," he groused. "But this is all a bit…difficult."

Mattie's anger deflated a little. "I know. I'm sorry. We just really need to prioritize here, yeah?"

He nodded. "They keep me really well restrained when I'm out of this room. I have zero chance of getting loose." Leo rubbed at his face, a hint of a yawn playing at his features. "And if we don't pull it off, if we try to escape and fail…"

He trailed off into a sour tone.

Mattie frowned. "What?"

Leo's eyes flicked over to her. "He'll hurt you, Mattie."

Goosebumps rippled along her arms and she wrapped them around her stomach as if that would stop the cold sloshing fear that welled up inside her.

"But if I keep playing along," Leo continued, "and if I just…do whatever he wants…Maybe it'll give the others enough time to find us. To find you, at least. And maybe I'll learn more about how my stupid brain works…"

She was silent for a long moment.

Leo pulled at his beard and yawned in earnest. It triggered a yawn of her own, along with the realization that she was exhausted.

"I'll keep thinking," he promised, "but I won't…I won't risk you getting hurt."

Mattie felt the pressure of tears again – tired, angry, frustrated tears. "Just – " she paused. "Just don't… If he wants something that will risk the others. If he's got some really weird dangerous plan. I dunno. Don't give it to him, ok? I'm not worth that."

Leo had a strange expression on his face. She couldn't decipher its meaning but it made her feel slightly wobbly and Mattie was suddenly very aware of how close he was sitting.

"I can't make promises," Leo said with a peculiar seriousness that she'd never seen before. "Of the two people in this room, you are the only one who is worthwhile. So. I'm not risking that."

She blinked.

"Well, I can't either. Make promises. So there," Mattie said brusquely.

There was a beat.

The expression on Leo's face shifted, very slowly, from serious to confused. "You can't…What?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"No, you can't make promises about _what?_ " Leo pressed. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Nothing! You should get some sleep. You look like you're ready to pass out." Mattie hurried to her feet, feeling a slight warmth to her cheeks that she was furiously trying to ignore. She busied herself with getting him a blanket.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Take this. Sleep," she ordered, thrusting a blanket at him.

He hesitated and then slowly – always so slowly! – he took it from her, eyes narrowed and suspicious.

"Mattie."

"I'm _fine._ "

To prove it, she huffed over to the far end of the wall with a blanket of her own and wrapped it around her shoulders and over her head, settling into the corner.

As if by magic, the light started to dim into darkness. But, then again, no. Not magic. Surveillance. They took the cue from her handing out blankets. They knew she was ready to sleep. Begin night cycle.

This was not a moment of danger induced romance. This was not a BBC drama. This room was not a safe harbor in the middle of a crisis.

And they were not alone.

* * *

Niska looked at the address in the text message. "That's it. That's all you have?" she asked.

Drummond's voice came over the speaker. _"The kid was high. He ran the red light and drove the lorry into the van. It was an accident. So they say. He's not talking yet but you can be sure he will. There isn't footage of the accident and no witnesses to say that the girl and your brother were even there. The kid claims no one else was in the van and Mrs. Hawkins hasn't woken up to give us the story."_ A pause _. "I got you an address to the company who owns the lorry. The police will be on the premise soon so I'd get a move on."_

"Understood," she said sharply.

It was an hour drive north into Harlow – the town that held the shop that housed the lorry that nearly killed Mrs. Hawkins. Niska made it in under forty minutes. She circled the shop a few times. Either the police hadn't been there yet or they had come and gone. She didn't expect any to hang around. No official kidnapping charges had been issued yet. As far as the police were concerned, this was a simple case of negligent driving.

Stupid humans.

Niska parked in the driveway and wandered into the open garage. It smelled of engine oil and unwashed bachelors. There was a big lorry truck sitting inside, the front end smashed in like a back ally boxer. The bonnet had been pried open and a man was fussing about with the engine, a perplexed look on his face.

She stood there, watching the man, unblinking, until he noticed her. It was always amusing when people jumped…

"Gah!" the man exclaimed, flinching backwards. "You gave me a scare, missy! What'd you want?"

"Detective Inspector Drummond," she said smoothly, not cracking a smile, not offering an apology. "I need to ask you some questions about the accident."

His eyes narrowed. His brow furrowed. He crossed both arms over his chest and straightened up.

Anger. Defensiveness. Suspicion.

"More questions, eh?" the man barked. " _More_? You lot were only at it for four hours this morning. Just _four_ hours, mind. And me losing business all the while. And you've got more questions. Well, I don't know what else I can tell you! You've got the lad who done it!"

Niska only looked at him with a face that she knew to be cold and judgmental.

The man squirmed under that look.

"Explain to me what happened, as far as you know," she said.

"Look, Josh went yesterday morning for a job in Ipswich. Only he never got there. I gets a call from an angry customer, wondering where their lorry has got to. I call the little shit and get no answer. Get a call from the police later that evening. Didn't get picked up by them until a few hours after he hit the van," the man said.

"Have you had any trouble with Josh before?" Niska asked.

"He's lazy, entitled, and young. A…what's the word…a Millennial," the man seethed. "I'm not the last bit surprised he's gone and done something this stupid."

"Has he done anything highly unusual lately?" she pressed.

"Him? No. Josh ain't nobody special. Unless you want a fix of weed or something. I expect he's got some criminal connections but, well, I suppose you would know that better than me, eh?" His eyebrows waggled – a hint that he wanted the seedy criminal details, probably.

"I'm assuming you keep records of each job he's had in the past two weeks," Niska pressed – ignoring his waggling eyebrows.

"Again? You lot have already got all of those records. I ain't withheld nothing!"

"I need _another_ copy of those records," she snapped. "And then I'll be on my way."

"My pleasure," the man grumbled. His voice suggested that dragging up those records for her was anything _but_ a pleasurable gesture. She wondered if she should be incensed by his grumbling but she found she couldn't spare more than a mild irritation for him. He was nothing more than a disgruntled fat meat sack.

Niska looked around the garage as he disappeared into the little office nook in the back. There were two other mechanics there, working on a different vehicle as a way to disguise their snooping. She caught the furtive glances and mumbled comments.

"You don't have any synths working here?" Niska called into the office.

"Can't stand the things," the meat sack said. "Don't trust 'em. Ain't natural."

"I'm sure they can't stand you either," Niska said coolly.

The man snorted a laugh. "Yeah, you're probably right. Don't bode well for the human race. When the robot revolution comes about, there'll be quite a few humans who wish they'd been like me and kept away from 'em"

She cracked a thin smile. "Robot revolution."

"You watch," the man insisted, coming out of the office with a stack of papers. "It'll happen."

"Oh, I have no doubt," Niska said. "Thank you for your cooperation."

She turned on her heels and left him without another word.

Niska drove to a café and settled there, the paper print outs in hand. She had a cup of coffee on the table that she absentmindedly pretended to drink from time to time.

The police weren't looking for kidnappers. They wouldn't logically follow up the leads in her hands. So Niska thought about it. She thought about all the possible leads and conclusions. She hunted through the invoices, dissecting them, cross referencing them, looking into the situations, the addresses, the people behind the numbers.

After nearly a half hour, she settled one invoice neatly on top of the pile.

A week ago, there was a rush delivery of two extra-large crates from Guildford to Manchester. Cash transaction. No telephone number provided. Paid by a Mr. H.G.

She tapped the invoice and slid her finger along the address.

A week ago. Not Mattie or Leo. But they were not the only missing persons she was concerned with. And missing persons fit nicely into extra-large crates.

* * *

 _To be Continued (I promise!)_


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: BOOM another update. I'm on a roll!_

* * *

When the lights turned back on, Leo knew a few things for certain. The night had passed in a fitful, half-sleep haze. Max and Mia gone, his memories and the way to delete them, the pressing urgency of capture – it all whirlpooled through his brain and would not be compartmentalized.

But he knew for certain that he had to fix this for Mattie.

Everything else could remain uncertain for the time being.

She'd been right earlier in that he needed to prioritize. He couldn't focus on anything else if he had to consider her safety at all times - if he had to be in the same room with her whenever he wasn't being picked to pieces by a mad scientist. It was hard enough trying to sort everything out in his own brain, let alone trying to do it with her constant input. And questions. And concern.

No, Mattie needed to be safe.

It wasn't a clean, simple decision but it grew steadily easier as she edged slowly nearer to him in her sleep. She was probably drawn to his warmth. It was probably an unconscious survival instinct. Nothing more.

Leo watched her sleep. The lights hadn't woken her up yet. She was curled into a tight ball, back to the corner.

He took a deep, heaving breath and closed his eyes. He reached out with his mind, feeling out along the invisible radio wavelengths– opening a door that he did not often open. It was like suddenly stripping naked and stepping out into a crowded room.

Well, maybe not crowded.

But he still felt naked.

There were only one other nearby, in his range. He had a very limited range. Mia said she could pair with Synths who were over twelve meters away. His range was closer to eight meters in good conditions. The walls surrounding him brought that range down to five, probably.

It was there, though. The synth. He couldn't pinpoint exactly where it was but he _knew_ it was there.

A sudden nervousness rippled through him and he realized then that he'd never done this with anyone other than his family. He wasn't even sure how it was supposed to work, exactly. With the others, he sort of just… _felt_ the connection – like reaching for a hand in the dark.

Leo sent that same feeling out to the other Synth.

There was a pause.

Then a _pulling_ …

And then he was in a new mental place. It wasn't the forest that he visited when connecting with any of his family. There were no trees, no open wild spaces. This was a clean white room. There were blue chairs lining the walls – like waiting room chairs.

"Hello, I am called Wynken," came a voice. Leo turned around.

It was the male Synth. It was smiling pleasantly at him. Images and text started scrolling across the walls – weather reports, Instagram photos, social media posts, news reports.

It was an info dump. He felt all the bytes pouring into his own brain.

Leo did his best to shut it out. He forced himself to focus.

"You appear to have corrupted data," Wynken said. "I will attempt to use my updated software to repair your operating system." The Synth walked toward him and reached out a hand.

"No!" Leo barked. He backed up. "No, you just…you just stay right there."

Wynken halted. "I am detecting unsanctioned upgrades. Your systems may be malfunctioning as a result of this illegal programing."

"Yeah, I know," Leo said lamely. "I'm fine. Look I just..."

He blanked. He just what? He just needed to hack into the head of this other Synth. And how, exactly, did he mean to do that? Leo looked around at the room, which still swirled with information. There were no doors or convenient keyboards.

"I am being summoned," said Wynken. "Thank you for sharing."

"Wait, no!"

But it was too late. The Synth disappeared from the room. The walls were white again.

"Shhhhhit," he growled.

 _"Leo…_ "

He paced around the white room, feeling the walls for cracks or ports or openings – as if it would be that obvious. He knew it wouldn't be so simple. This wasn't the other Synth's head. This was a waiting room. An in-between space.

 _"… I swear to god, this is not the time to go coma patient on me…"_

Leo sat in one of the chairs and stared at the place where Wynken had disappeared. He stared really _really_ hard.

" _LEO!"_

He jolted, blinked, sucked in a breath. The white place vanished and reality closed in around him.

Mattie made a noise. "Oh my god, that was not funny," she hissed at him.

Leo shook his head, mentally doing his best to close the open doorway in his brain. "Sorry. Sorry, I was um. Just. Trying something. Didn't work. Don't ask me about it." He rubbed at his scalp.

"Are you ok?" She leaned in very close to him, examining his face as if it would tell her something that he wasn't willing to offer her.

"I'm fine, I promise," he insisted. "I'm—" He looked down. Her hand was on his knee. She must have felt the clap of awkwardness at the same exact moment because she whisked her hand away.

Any attempt at a redeeming conversation was taken from them. The door opened and Synths arrived with the all familiar gurney.

He stood. "It's going to be ok, Mattie," he told her as he walked to the gurney, feeling somewhat composed for the first time since being kidnapped. Again.

He didn't have to look at her to feel the suspicion. The emotion flattened her voice. "Don't do anything stupid, ok? Promise me you won't do anything stupid…"

Leo flashed her a rueful grin as he was strapped in place and pulled from the room.

"Leo!"

The door clanged shut – cutting her off from whatever else she wanted to say.

He drew in a long deep breath as if that could steady his frayed nerves. As if it would shake the feeling of finality. As if it would help him do the impossible.

"Mr. Elster!" came the voice of a mad scientist. "I trust you slept well?"

The deep breath whooshed out of his lungs but he didn't spare a glance for the man. He looked for the second synth. It was at his shoulders.

A nagging whisper of an idea had started developing. It was a ridiculous idea. It was impossible and wondrous and so completely out of the box that he didn't even know where the box was.

His body couldn't move. He could not lash out at his enemy. He could not run or hide.

But that did not mean he could not act.

 _I am a virus._

It was Matties fault. He'd be sure to blame her for the ridiculous idea when he saw her again. But in the meantime, he pictured a hack. He visualized the code. He wrote it in his head as they turned him onto his belly and tightened the straps and shaved the stubble around the access port. He memorized the lines he'd use if he'd been on a laptop, plugged into a strange Synth, seeking to access it.

 _I am a virus_.

It would have to be fast. Lightning fast. Because if it wasn't, if they plugged him in before he could escape, there would be no hacking. There would be nothing he could do. And there was a great chance that he'd be found out if he did this and failed. And if that happened…Mattie would pay.

 _I am a virus._

Leo closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and reached out to the female Synth.

For a moment, nothing happened. He had the distinct impression of a phone ringing…and ringing…and ringing.

A flash of panic trailed down his spine.

What if she didn't share with him? What if they'd never share with him again? Was there a limit to how many times they connected to each other?

And then he felt himself slipping into the white room.

His mind went blank.

There she was, standing neatly in the center of the room. The walls flickered with images.

 _I am a virus._

"Hello, I am—"

Leo lunged forward and grabbed her, both hands slapped to either side of her head. He thought of the code, the virus, the hack. He imagined it like a dagger going into the Synth's core.

Her eyes widened.

A force like a solid brick wall came against his mind. He flung himself against it, adding layers of code to his mental dagger, honing the edge of the blade so that it slid into the gaps in the wall. He pictured it going deep into the operating systems, infecting the surrounding programs and software.

The wall shuddered.

Pain lit across his skull and buried into the place where head met spine.

He pushed harder.

 _I am a virus…_

There was a pop. A flash. A moment of paralysis. And his vision went gray.

 _"…its vitals have gone a bit…Oh no. There, he's stabilizing. What a strange thing. Mr. Elster, can you hear me?"_

He blinked.

The gray haze started to clear.

And he suddenly was not entirely sure he was grounded in reality anymore.

Leo was staring at himself.

He was looking rather poorly, actually. He was pale and sweating and there was blood dripping on the ground. He was completely limp.

"Mr. Elster, if you please, this is not the time to play games with me," said the scientist. He was hovering over Leo's body, nudging it.

He felt that nudge like a ghost. Like it was from very far away. Or, at least, several feet away.

 _Oh shit._

Leo lifted his hand. It was soft and small and perfect.

He felt a mouth – not _his_ mouth – drop open a little.

But there was a spark going across his head. It flickered and his body – his _real_ body – twitched. And he felt it in both places.

"He's unresponsive but he's basically stable. Wynken, run a diagnostic and lets see if we can't decipher the problem."

He frowned. Time was short.

 _Focus, Leo. Focus._

As quietly and gracefully as he could, Leo turned the female Synth and walked slowly out of the room. And as he snuck out, he was struck by how much his heart was _not_ pounding and his chest was not heaving because he felt like both of those things were happening. He felt like he was reacting to the stress of the moment and reacting rather badly.

Although, as he stepped further and further away, the sensation did not follow him. It stayed behind. With his body.

Leo wished he could swallow nervously.

He made it to the hallway without raising alarms and as soon as he was out of sight, he jogged. The Synth body felt clunky and unnatural. It surged with perfect power but it was fighting him, making him flail and jerk as he stumbled to the locked door. He patted his pockets and found a few keys tucked into…into his _skirt_ pocket. But there was no time to dwell on that.

The sparks across his head were growing sharper.

He fumbled a key into the lock. It was wrong. He tried another. And another. And then the tumblers turned. He pulled the door open.

There she was, curled in the corner, looking horribly worried.

"Mattie," he said. It was a strange voice. It wasn't even Blynken's voice. This tone was modulating, trying to adjust to new software and doing it badly.

She just stared at him.

"Mattie, it's me. I'd love to explain but I don't have the time. You need to get out of here," he said in a pitchy robotic whisper.

His whole body shuddered.

Confusion painted her features. Then shock.

"…Leo?"

"I'm losing control. You need to go. Now. Quietly."

Her eyes got huge. She wasn't moving.

Leo didn't wait. He started down the hall without her. She came slinking out behind him a half second later. The stairs at the end of the hall lead to another steel door. It was locked but he had keys. He got it on the second try and quietly pushed the door open.

His whole body shuddered.

"Leo…"

"Shh," he hissed.

He slipped into the next hallway.

It wasn't what he'd been expecting. He'd been anticipating another two or three levels to crawl through or more Synths or a fellow scientist. More security.

He didn't get any of that.

It was the back room to an old shop. Stacks of ancient computers and typewriters and telephones littered dusty shelves. The wood paneling on the walls suggested late eighties. There was an open doorway to the front of the shop. It was just as cluttered and dusty as the back.

He snuck forward a few stuttery steps, glancing around, searching for other people. Mattie closed the door gently behind them.

"It's clear," he whispered. "Go."

She trotted past him and got a few feet before she realized he wasn't following her. Mattie turned and fixed him with a suspicious glare.

"I can't come with you," Leo insisted. "I'm still…down there. Go and get help. Don't call the police."

She looked incredibly unhappy.

"Ok," she said softly. "Be careful."

He nodded.

"I'll be back, Leo."

He nodded again. "Please. Go."

She hesitated a moment longer, eying the twitching, uncoordinated body that housed him. Before he could tell her off again, she ran for the front of the shop, eased open the smeared glass door, and disappeared.

Leo felt the ghost of a sigh from his body down below. His lips twitched into a smile.

And then a cackle of electricity brought him to his knees.

It was time to go. The mission had been accomplished and it was time to evacuate this body.

Only….

…he wasn't entirely sure how to make that happen.

He looked back at the door to the stairs and made a face. He didn't want to go back down. It was the last thing he wanted to do. But he did it anyway. There was an urgency tugging him back to his own body.

Leo fumbled down the stairs, falling more than walking. By the time he landed at the bottom, Wynken had arrived.

Dreamily, Leo perceived the Synth picking him up and carrying him back to the lab. He knew that was happening. But control was nearly gone. He felt himself being boxed in by the original personality. Quarantined.

Fear prickled along his consciousness.

It was _really_ time to go.

Leo closed his eyes and sought out the white room.

For a moment, all that was there was darkness – a dead, dull darkness.

He reached out. Imagined it. Called for it. He pictured himself nosing back along the path he'd brutally carved into the Synth brain.

And he was met with black.

The fear ballooned into terror.

Leo reached back for the Synth body and connected solidly with a wall of electricity.

Panic.

He flailed back and grabbed for the white room. For his old body. For anything that made sense. He pushed himself along empty pathways, blindly.

 _"_ _Mr. Elster, where have you gone?"_ came a soft gentle sound.

It was barely audible – the faintest wisp of noise.

With a cry of desperation, Leo thrust himself towards the noise. He pursued it. Chased it down. There were more sounds. More words. The musings of a mad man. He did not care. Leo snatched the sensation and rode it down.

He gasped. Arched.

Dark became gray became fuzzy pieces of light and color and feeling and smell.

He was staring at the tiled floor.

His skin felt loose and itchy and unsettled.

And he was back.

* * *

Clifford's head was leaning to the side.

The cyborg was trembling violently, taking big shuddering breaths. He thought he heard some slight sobbing noises.

Then Clifford looked over at Wynken who was carrying a limp Blynken in its arms. The male Synth carefully placed the female Synth on another gurney and plugged it in.

"Mr. Elster what _have_ you done?" Clifford asked in a bewildered voice.

He didn't expect an answer and he didn't get one. But he had a distinct feeling that he knew exactly what had happened. "Wynken, please go check on our other guest," Clifford said.

"I do believe," he continued to no one in particular, "that it's attempted a transference. And I'm not certain it was entirely a success."

It was times like this that he wished he still had a human partner in this endeavor to become immortal. This was a very significant event. One that should be shared. One that should be analyzed.

"Matilda Hawkins has gone," came Wynken's perfect voice. "Shall I attempt to find her?"

Clifford sighed. "Oh you've gone and done something foolish, Mr. Elster. And now I'm afraid I'll have to find her and remove a few non-essential body parts. Perhaps her feet. It'll be difficult to run again if she hasn't got any feet."

The half-boy wasn't even reacting to him. Still. It was back in its own body but it still was ignoring him.

He reached over and grabbed a syringe. With another huff of disappointment, he slid the needle into its elbow, going for the bed of nerves. The sounds of distress brought a slight smile to his lips.

"Give it a moment, Mr. Elster. It will soon numb your entire arm and then you will hardly even notice the pain of punishment until well after you've been put away for the day." Clifford leaned back and regarded the thing on the table. "I think you have just acquired some very helpful data, Mr. Elster. I expect this will be very useful to my research. When you've had a moment to recover, please do try to remember exactly what you did."

"I will do _nothing_ for you," it seethed, still panting heavily.

He chuckled. "Still a fighting spirit. No matter. When we find her and make her scream, you will change your mind."

A string of expletives came bursting forth.

"And here I was going to let your arm go completely numb. Wynken, kindly snap the, ummm right radius, I think. Then deposit Mr. Elster in his room, lock the door, and begin your search for Matilda. Do not allow any connections with Elster and update your firewall while you're at it."

Clifford started to shut down his equipment. A flash of irritation crossed his mind. It wasn't even nine-o'clock and already he had to end things for the morning. Ah well. Important information was ready for the gleaning. He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.


End file.
